‘We were all in shock for days’ Memories offer glimpses of how Sanford reacted to JFK’s assassination 50 years ago

Thursday

Nov 21, 2013 at 3:15 AM

By Ellen W. ToddSanford News Writer

SANFORD — This Friday, Nov. 22, is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

For many who were old enough to understand what had happened, Nov. 22, 1963 is a defining moment in history. For some it was a loss of innocence. Anyone who was old enough on that day to be aware of the tragic event remembers the moment he or she learned that the president had been shot, and then shortly afterward, that he had died.

“I was in fourth grade, in Mrs. Georgia Couture’s class,” Sanford resident Glenn Dowey recalled this week. “We had been out on the playground and the principal called all the teachers in, and then they called us in.”

Dowey said the Lafayette School students went to their classrooms, where their teachers told them the president had been shot. Then the principal called the students down to the school’s small assembly room, where a black-and-white Philco television was set up on the stage. Dowey said they watched the news coverage from Dallas as the tragedy unfolded.

Dowey’s name appeared in an unrelated article in the Nov. 28, 1963, issue of the Sanford Tribune and Advocate. The weekly newspaper published on Thursdays and the Nov. 28 issue was the first after the assassination. The front page of the paper featured a drawing of the slain president with the words “We Mourn” above it. The weekly paper also published an editorial by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ralph McGill, titled, “Harvest of Hate.” McGill was a well known antisegregationist and was the editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper.

The Sanford Tribune also published an article about memorial services that had been held in Sanford-area churches during the previous few days, under the headline of “Community Grieves, Tribute Paid to President in Memorial Services Here.”

“Dismay and shock of the assassination of the late President were expressed at all the services which cited the former leader of the country as a great man who served the United States and mankind with courage, self-sacrifice, conviction and dignity,” the paper said.

“It was really quite shocking, especially to children,” Dowey said in a telephone interview. “You didn’t think that [a U.S. president being killed] was possible.”

He said students watched the coverage for an hour or more and that he still remembers some of the people — just ordinary people who had gathered in downtown Dallas to greet the popular president and first lady, and at the hospital to find out what was happening, to pray, and to mourn. The Sanford School Department decided to close school early and children walked home. Dowey recalled seeing workers coming home to his neighborhood as many businesses closed early that day.

“I think we were all dazed and stunned,” he said.

Sanford historian Harland Eastman was far from Sanford in November of 1963. He was head of the U.S. Consulate in Saigon, Vietnam. He said he remembers the South Vietnamese people began gathering outside the Consulate when they learned of the assassination. Eastman said they came to express their sympathy to the Americans.

Most schools, businesses and government offices were closed the following Monday, Nov. 25, for the president’s funeral and burial. Most people stayed home and watched the events on television.

“Nobody went anywhere. All we did was sit and watch TV,” said Sanford News Sports Editor John Cochin, who was a teacher at the Sanford Junior High School in 1963. Cochin said the principal at the junior high broadcast the radio announcement of the shooting over the school’s public address system. About 10 minutes later, he said, the principal announced that the president was dead.

“We were all in shock for days,” he said.

Dowey, who was Sanford’s Director of Human Resources for many years, said he recalls people opening crying as they walked to and from neighborhood grocery stores.

He recalls Kennedy’s assassination as being even more dramatic than the events of Sept. 11, 2001, when the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were destroyed by terrorists.